Simple Ham Radio Antennas

.If you need an emergency or portable antenna for 20 meters, then this video by Dave (W0ZF) will get you on the air quickly and inexpensively. The only materials I had to buy were some nylon rope and a telescoping fiberglass fishing pole from the Hilo " Sports Authority " outlet. The pole cost me $30.00. I followed Dave's instructions and soon had a light weight portable antenna that performed well in a local beach park I used for testing. The vertical element should be a quarter wavelength for the 20 meter frequency of your choice. I chose 14.200 MHz and cut my vertical element and my radial wires to a length of 16.47 feet (16 feet, 5.6 inches)/5.02 meters. My coaxial feedline was 50 feet/15.24 meters of RG-8X coaxial cable with UHF connectors. I used a spare Budwig Hi-Que center coax connector to attach the antenna elements, with the + side connected to the vertical element and the - side connected to the ground radial system. My antenna wire and radials wer...

KF7ETX has built an easily assembled portable VHF/UHF antenna system that can be set up most anywhere, from your home to an emergency station in the country. All it requires a painter's pole support mast , three paracord guy ropes , a dual-band 2 meter /70 meter antenna, and some low-loss coaxial cable. I have a similar arrangement at my QTH, where I use a homebrewed 5/8 wavelength 2 meter antenna supported by a 33-ft/10.06 MFJ telescoping fiberglass mast. The mast is secured by clamps on the side of my garage. I feed the antenna with 50-ft/15.24 meters of RG-213 coaxial cable. The mast can also be broken down for portable use. The antenna works very well from my rural location. The antenna used in this video by KF7ETX can be made from locally available materials from the nearest hardware or home improvement outlet. This is a simple, effective antenna that will give you hours of fun at your favorite park, beach, or mountain top. Have fun. Aloha es 73 de KH6JRM.

Now that Tropical Storm Iselle has left the state of Hawaii , those of us on Hawaii Island can complete the massive task of clearing roads, restoring power, and, in some cases, rebuilding our homes. Damage to my home was minimal with only fallen trees and "disassembled" wire antennas to be cleared from the property.  Our subdivision in the Orchidland Estates area of the Puna District escaped serious damage with only power interruption and blocked roads presenting major difficulties. When I surveyed the damage after the passing of the storm (07-08 August 2014), it soon became apparent that most of my "antenna farm" would have to be rebuilt.  The only antennas left intact were the 40/15 meter inverted vee and the NVIS 40 meter loop, which were lowered before the storm.  My 135-foot/41.15 meters doublet lodged in a 45-foot/13.71 meters tall eucalyptus tree was torn to shreds by windblown branches and fallen debris.  I did salvage the 450-ohm ladder line , a few ...

How would you like to have a 5-band vertical antenna that covers 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meters that requires no ground radial system and can be built from materials from your junk box or from the nearest hardware store? You can, if you build a simple Vertical Dipole and feed it with 300 ohm television twin lead or 450 ohm ladder line terminated into a balanced antenna "tuner." If your "tuner" has no provision for balanced feeders, you can insert the twin lead/ladder lead into a 4:1 current balun and use a short piece of 50 ohm coaxial cable to connect the antenna to your "tuner." I got this idea from an article in "Simple and Fun Antennas for Hams" by Chuck Hutchinson (K8CH) and Dean Straw (N6BV).  Hutchinson and Straw conducted a series of antenna experiments using 15 meter vertical dipoles in a space-restricted urban area. The results of their work were impressive, so I decided to use some of their suggestions and make my own version of...

One of the joys of moving into a bigger home with a decent back yard (1 acre of mixed brush and trees) is the ability to build the wire antennas I've always wanted.  Like many of my fellow amateur radio operators, I've endured HOAs, CC &Rs , and limited space for most of my 37 years as a ham.  I operated fairly well under these circumstances using stealth antennas from "ground hugging" loops to thin random wires stretching to the nearest tree. Now that my xyl and I are semi-retired, we have to the time to "fix up" our final home in an area conducive to our various hobbies, including gardening, amateur radio, backyard astronomy, and just plain relaxing.   Over the past few months, I've begun the erection of my "antenna farm" and the building of my radio room in the garage.  There's a lot of work to be done, but it's enjoyable and gives me exercise. Last Friday, just before the 2014 ARRL Field Day, I completed a new antenna whi...

ARRL Field Day is right around the proverbial corner--28 June to 29 June 2014, to be exact.  According to the ARRL, more than 35,000 amateur radio operators used 2,500 emergency-powered stations to get on the air in 2013.   A similar number is expected this year. While many of our fellow amateurs will be heading to a Field Day site, there are a few of us, including yours truly, who will be operating under emergency conditions at home as 1E stations or as mobile stations as 1C.  For those of us home bound or forced by HOAs or CC & Rs to "hit the road" during Field Day, this national emergency communications exercise can be just as much fun and instructive as showing up a your club site. Before I retired from the commercial broadcast business, I usually worked Saturdays and Sundays in the news room, doing play by play over the radio, or hosting remote broadcasts from shopping malls and craft fairs.  Great work and lots of crazy people, but I often missed a c...

Over the past few weeks, I've become fascinated with antennas mounted on or near the ground. I've even built a few, such as Mike Toia's (K3MT) "grasswire" antenna and a similar "earth" antenna from Australia.  A few months ago, I built a simple beverage antenna for my old Hallicrafters SX-62A receiver.  All or these wire antennas worked very well, especially for the AM broadcast band . With a few modifications, these wires can be used as a separate receive antenna for amateur radio stations located in noisy or desert areas.  I've used vertical antennas for transmitting and low-mounted antennas for receiving.   So, what are these ground hugging "long wires?" According to articles published in the "NASWA Journal" for December 1992 and January 1993 by author Joseph Buch, these antennas mounted on, near, or slightly below ground level are called "wave" antennas because "they extract energy from the wave as it tr...

I knew it would happen.  The time I ran out of antenna wire.  After several years of using old #14 AWG house wire, #18 AWG speaker wire from Radio Shack , and remnants from studio wiring projects at my former employer (Pacific Radio Group), I had finally exhausted my wire supply for homebrewed antennas.  What to do until the next sale at Lowe's, Home Depot , and Ace Hardware?  Give up? Banish the thought!. With last week's beautiful weekend before me, I needed some cheap wire to erect my latest antenna "masterpiece."  I found my resource in the kitchen in the form of a new roll of "Diamond Aluminum Foil"--the stuff my xyl uses for cooking tasty treats and dinners.  Since there were several new rolls near the stove, I decided to "borrow" a new roll and apologize later.  Besides, I would buy another roll the next time I visited the supermarket. According to the label on the container, the roll contained 66.66 yards (199.98 feet) or 60.96 meters...

How would you like to have a simple dipole-like antenna that would give you almost 3dB over over the classical dipole antenna ?  You can if you're willing to build a Double Extended Zepp antenna for your favorite amateur radio band.   Now that I have enough room at my new home-in-progress in the Puna District of Hawaii Island, I decided to make a simple gain antenna for one of my favorite DX bands--20 meters. I had a spare MFJ telescoping fiberglass mast available, some leftover #14 AWG house wire in the garage, a spare 4:1 W9INN balun, a 50-ft./15.24 length of 450 ohm ladder line , a sturdy Drake MN-4 transmatch ("the tuner"), and 25-ft./7.62 meters of RG -8X coaxial cable with UHF connectors. I decided to configure the extended double zepp as an inverted V, knowing that its gain would be a bit less than a horizontal arrangement of a half wavelength dipole. With school over until mid-August, I thought this simple antenna project would give me something creat...

My antenna "farm" at the new QTH finally is taking shape. So far, I've built and used successfully a 40-10 meter inverted V fed with ladder line , a 5/8 wavelength vertical for 20, 15, and 10 meters, a 135-ft/41.15 meters "classic doublet" fed with ladder line that works from 80-10 meters, and a 40-10 meter delta loop fed with ladder line.  I've described these antennas in past posts.  All of them work very well with relatively low power (less than 50 watts) with my older rigs (Argosy II, Swan 100 MX, Yaesu FT-7, and a Kenwood TS-520). Although I prefer multiband HF antennas fed with 450-ohm ladder line, I still use a few single or two-band antennas fed with 50-ohm coaxial cable when I wish to experiment on 40 or 15 meters.  Last Sunday, 18 May 2014, I decided to build a simple two-band dipole covering the 40 and 15 meter bands using a single piece of RG -8X coaxial cable. The dipole would be designed for the lowest frequency range and then use the thir...

How would you like to have a simple, effective antenna for 20 meters thast will give you some gain over a ground plane antenna and exhibit a radiation angle of approximately 15 degrees? You can grab more DX (distance) at a modest cost by building a 5/8 wavelength vertical antenna working in conjunction with 1/4 wavelength radials beneath the main radiating element. I've built 5/8 wavelength antennas for 10 and 15 meters and they work very well.  If you desire multiband performance out of this antenna, you will need a balanced feed line (such as 450-ohm ladder line), a 4:1 current balun, and a sturdy ATU ( antenna tuning unit ).  If you prefer to use this antenna on one band only, you can establish resonance with a base loading coil that tunes the antenna to 3/4 wavelength  resonance.  Standard 1/4 wavelength wire radials are used with both versions of this antenna. According to William I. Orr (W6SAI) and Stuart D. Cowan (W2LX), "a 5/8 wavelength antenna pr...